Friday, March 30, 2012

Need information on the go? You can use your mobile phone to text your question directly to a CU Librarian.

Send your question to the mobile short code 66746. The body of your first text should consist of the keyword CameronLIB, followed by your question. For example, if you want to ask about a book you can send to 66746, "CameronLIB Is the College Algebra textbook available?" Or to ask about hours, you can send to 66746, "CameronLIB How late are you open today?"

Texting a librarian

By including the keyword CameronLIB in your first text to 66746, all of your future texts will be automatically directed to a CU librarian and the keyword will no longer be required for future texts. To save time when texting in the future, you can save the mobile short code 66746 as CameronLIB in your phone's contacts. All texts are anonymous and standard messaging/data rates may apply.

Friday, March 23, 2012

Graduate Students and Seniors: March 27
Juniors: March 28
Sophomores: March 29
Freshmen: March 30
Open Enrollment continues through the beginning of classes which start May 31 for Summer and August 15 for Fall.

PC Browser Zoom In
And now for my quick tip. If you're having difficulty reading information in a PC browser because it's too small, hold down the control key and press + or - to increase and decrease the zoom. Press ctrl and zero to return to the page's default settings.

Friday, March 16, 2012

Thank you to Chad Hunte, one of the ITS Student Workers, for providing this post about one of his favorite sites for class productivity.

Dropbox
We all have jump drives or thumb drives, but what happens if it gets misplaced or lost? How often do you backup your data on your portable storage? Why not use the cloud and access your data from anywhere?

Dropbox is an online storage service. You can download the application and create a free account by going to www.dropbox.com and clicking on the Sign in link. The 2GB of free storage is more than enough to store that English paper you are working on or that Excel spreadsheet you have for tomorrow's class. There is no limit to the file types that you are able to store on Dropbox.

Desktop Sync
One of the greatest advantages of Dropbox is desktop synchronization which enables you to work from the Dropbox folder on your PC and it will automatically be saved to the cloud. You can create folders and index your files from your device or from the web based interface.

Folder Synchronization

The Dropbox application is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, IPhone IOS, Blackberry, and Android. It's also integrated into many apps in the appstore as well as the android market. This means you can access the power points you have saved straight from your tablet or smartphone.

Folder Sharing and Public Links

You are able to share folders with anyone with a Dropbox account. This is great for group work, especially for large projects. Also you have access to a public folder.

Public and Group Folders

A URL can be generated and sent to someone for any file in this folder to be downloaded. When files are too big to email, you can just upload them to your Dropbox account and email the link. This can be done by simply right clicking on the file you want, selecting Dropbox, then "copy public link."

Right click a file, choose dropbox, and copy public link for a URL to email to your group.

Version Tracking

Another great feature is that Dropbox keeps version history.
With this you can go retrieve older versions on files and also know who made the
changes if it was a shared folder. Let’s say you accidentally overwrote a paper
you were working on. You can always go back and get the previous version where
the changes have not been made.

Right click the file on Dropbox and choose Previous Versions

Then select the version of the file you want to access.

These are just some of the features, but just enough for you to never
worry about how you're going to get that assignment you did at home. With Dropbox, you can access it from anywhere.

What is my email address?
Typically your email address is going to be Firstname.Lastname@cameron.edu. However, sometimes students have the same name and that address is already taken. Subsequent email addresses have digits added to them in order to have different email addresses. There are two places that you can see if your address has a digit at the end.

Gmail
Click on the gear icon at the top right and choose Mail Settings.
Click on the Accounts tab.
You should see your full name reply-to address set as the default.

The Reply-to address should be your fullname email address.

Why do I see my initials+ID@cameron.edu?
Your gmail account is set up so that you can login with the same account information that you login to AggieAccess and campus computers. Your initials+ID is actually the account name. However, since that's not what you would want other people to see or send you email to, we have an alias set up that uses your full name email address and we set that as the default reply-to address when your account is created.

Friday, March 2, 2012

Thanks Mandi Smith for providing today's post with news from the library!

Hopefully, you already know that you can access over 80,000 Cameron University Library e-books from home, or anywhere with an internet connection, but do you know that you can also "checkout" and download almost 60,000 e-books to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch? (For all of you Android users out there, an Android app is currently in development with a scheduled release date of Summer 2012.)

Once downloaded, e-books are available for viewing without an internet connection . . . so no more running around trying to find a Wi-Fi hotspot or worrying about your mobile data usage/bill. Best of all, once the application has been successfully installed, you can download a book directly to your device with the single touch of a button.

Installation/Account Creation

There are three steps involved to install and configure the necessary application for downloading Cameron University Library e-books. The process takes approximately two to five minutes to complete.

2. Download the free ebrary app from Apple's app store.
To download the ebrary app, go to http://itunes.apple.com/app/ebrary/id493652464 with your device's browser. Of course, you could also just search for the term "ebrary" in the app store.

ebrary application

3. Sign In

When you first open the ebrary app it will ask you to sign into your ebrary account. After signing in to your ebrary account it will ask you to enter your Adobe ID. If you do not have one, a link will be provided so you can create an Adobe ID.

ebrary login and entering adobe ID

Signing in with your Adobe ID is necessary as it manages your "checkouts." You are allowed to download up to ten e-books for up to fourteen days.

Once you are completely signed in, you can begin searching for and downloading e-books. If at any time you need help, please feel free to ask your always-friendly and always-helpful Cameron University librarians.